The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

Author:Maggi Lidchi Grassi [Grassi, Maggi Lidchi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788184002096
Publisher: Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

13

“Some devil has possessed his heart. It is not the acharya that you knew.” Krishna tried to bend my will.

I saw the glitter in my guru’s eyes again. I heard his madman’s laughter, but if your father has gone mad, you do not kill him. It is against the Kshatriya code to kill a woman or a madman or someone rising out of sleep.

Yes, this commander had to die. But this was not the way to do it and I was not the Kshatriya to use such means. It was worse than using poison. It was worse than arson. Not even Kanika who had devised the Palace of Delight for us could have thought of such a ruse. Krishna wanted me to tell our guru that his son was dead. Our guru always said that life had lost its savour after he came back from Drupada. It returned the day I won a kingdom for him, but if Ashwatthama could not rule it he would not want to live. Dronacharya would always quote the Vedas: “Here is your son Mortal Man, here is your immortality.”

Krishna was waiting for my answer. But the demon wore my guru’s form and I had never lied to Dronacharya. Krishna was indeed suggesting that we tell him that his son was dead.

“He loved two people in his life. You and Ashwatthama. That is where his heart is if there is any left. You are a child, Arjuna.”

“I am his child. That is why I cannot do this to him. It is monstrous.”

“It is also the only way to snatch his heart back from the dark force. He is its plaything.”

I remembered when we were in exile that the wise men had foreseen that Dronacharya would be seized by demons. Still I could not speak. “Can you not tell a lie to save the world?” The world depended on a human heart? Mine was not free enough. I knew that if I faced my guru with a·lie he would see it in my eyes and hear it in my voice. I told Krishna my thought. He understood the silent question.

“I cannot, he calls me the king of lies; it will have no meaning if I do it.” Eldest was no match for Ashwatthama. It would make no sense to say that he had killed him. Bheema was the one who might have.

Like a child, Bheema stared round-eyed at us. He could kill Dronacharya more happily than lie to him. There seemed to be no way to do it until it was decided that Bheema slaughter a splendid elephant I had named Ashwatthama for the way it took little jumps when it walked. Bheema had hardly killed the elephant when we heard the sound of whining once again. It was the sound that I heard in my inner ear the day my acharya gave me the astra.

Now there came a sudden hush, a silence, as though the world had lost consciousness, never to wake again. It was worse than total blackness; nothing existed anymore.

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